Ahead of the first official juvenile trials of the 2026/27 season, we addressed a common talking point; are the numbers of 2-year-olds racing in Australia decreasing?
When examining the data, it became clear that, while the exact number of juveniles is decreasing, the percentage of the foal crop running as 2-year-olds has not dropped much over the past 20 years.
However, for a nation that famously covets precocity and speed, the percentage of our foals who run as 2-year-olds doesn’t quite match up to some other jurisdictions.
Ahead of Australia in the proportion of the two-year-old crop that reaches the races are Japan, where 67% of juveniles start, followed by the United States, France, and the combined Great Britain and Ireland crop.
| Japan | 7753 | 5180 | 67% |
| USA | 18,500 | 6196 | 33% |
| France | 5091 | 1451 | 29% |
| Ireland & GB* | 14,079 | 3674 | 26% |
| Australia | 11,850 | 2172 | 18% |
| New Zealand | 2984 | 265 | 9% |
Table: Percentage of 2023-born foals who raced as 2-year-olds, *combined due to high population crossover
Each jurisdiction takes a different approach to how its young horses are trained, conditioned and prepared for racing, as well as what is expected of them at two. We begin by looking at how those training structures and physical demands help explain the differences in participation rates above.
An object in motion
A point where the path diverges for an Australasian yearling and those in much of the Northern Hemisphere is after they are backed for the first time. For the majority of Europe, the norm is for horses to remain in some form of training throughout their careers without extended periods in the paddock.
“Once Frankel was broken in and had entered Sir Henry Cecil’s yard, he didn’t leave the stable complex aside from the races until he retired to Juddmonte,” said bloodstock agent William Johnson (FBAA).
"Once Frankel was broken in and had entered Sir Henry Cecil’s yard, he didn’t leave the stable complex aside from the races until he retired to Juddmonte." - William Johnson
“A spell would constitute effectively walking or trotting. They would still be getting that repetitive concussion work, which lends itself to better conditioning of the body and maintaining a greater foundational fitness.”
The majority of European horses work on straight gallops as opposed to round a circular track, with terrain and gradient varying with location. Turf and woodchip are the most common training surfaces, the latter favoured for its minimal kickback and its hardiness through Europe’s colder, wetter conditions.
William Johnson | Image courtesy of Tattersalls
The training system has altogether a different shape to Australia; riders stay on the horses longer, working over longer distances - but not necessarily going any slower than their Australasian counterparts. If anything, the practice lends itself to hardening horses faster.
"I think to properly condition 2-year-olds, you still need to get them working in the faster paces and putting them under a bit of pressure,” said Tom Charlton, whose father Roger Charlton trained G1 Epsom Derby winner Quest For Fame (GB).
"To properly condition 2-year-olds, you still need to get them working in the faster paces and putting them under a bit of pressure." - Tom Charlton
There are few ‘official’ jump-outs or trials in British racing, and there is less emphasis on having a fully finished product to take to the races, particularly if a horse isn’t expected to be a top level performer. Nevertheless, the education at home doesn’t neglect the realities of raceday.
“In the UK, you might work a young horse over six or seven furlongs in a group on a straight track, and that would function as a less competitive form of a trial,” Charlton said.
“It is quite easy to condition a horse to run over a mile in England first-up. It's a very common practice."
Tom Charlton | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
In Johnson’s time as a pupil assistant to Roger Varian, trainer of Cambridge Stud’s Charyn (GB), he noted that the most forward 2-year-olds would progress to fast work once the grass gallops opened in March and reiterated Charlton’s observations of horses working for longer distances than was common in Australia.
“I remember going to the Limekilns, taking off at the bottom and working over four and a half to five furlongs at a good speed,” he said.
“Much further than you would go at the same speed in Australia.”
Japan’s integrated system
The vast majority of Japanese yearlings are broken in on the North Island in Hokkaido, where the cold winters necessitate the process being complete by November. From there, horses head to specialised training farms, some who boast undercover facilities to withstand the cold weather, to continue the process.
“Our primary target is to develop horses capable of reaching their peak during the Japanese 3-year-old Classics, particularly in middle-distance races on turf,” said Dr Tomonori Tsuda, Farm Manager at Northern Farm.
“To achieve this, we believe horses need to begin training relatively early and accumulate consistent work over time.”
"We believe horses need to begin training relatively early and accumulate consistent work over time." - Dr Tomonori Tsuda
In part because of limited stabling at on-track training centres in Japan, horses only head to the trainer’s stables 10 days before a race start for fine-tuning and they will usually return to the farm after two starts for a break. Strong communication between trainer and training farm is essential to make a horse’s preparation for racing as smooth as possible.
On the farm, horses have access to both straight and circular training tracks with differing surfaces, treadmills, and horse walkers, all used collaboratively to prepare a program specific to each horse. The length of time spent under saddle is similar to that in Europe, but speed tends to be slower and a large emphasis is placed on rider education to ensure horses are working properly.
Dr Tomonori Tsuda | Image courtesy of IFHA
“Horses generally work at an even pace,” Dr Tsuda said. “The incline allows us to develop aerobic capacity while naturally encouraging the horse to shift its balance towards the hindquarters. This means we can build strength and cardiovascular fitness efficiently without relying on excessive speed.”
There is, Dr Tsuda noted, an important balance that has to be struck with preparing young horses.
While Northern Farm has produced numerous Champion 2YO graduates, including recent shuttler Admire Mars (Jpn), it has to be recognised that the bodies and minds of young horses are still developing, and both risk injury if pushed too far, too fast.
“For this reason, we try to avoid unnecessarily intense exercise such as repeated maximal-effort gallops,” Dr Tsuda said. “We use highly cushioned but consistently maintained training surfaces and monitor individual responses using objective measures such as heart rate and blood lactate. The aim is to provide enough stimulus for adaptation without crossing into overtraining.”
"We try to avoid unnecessarily intense exercise such as repeated maximal-effort gallops... the aim is to provide enough stimulus for adaptation without crossing into overtraining." - Dr Tomonori Tsuda
Dr Tsuda emphasised that one of the greatest strengths for the Northern Farm training system is its continuity. Each horse has been observed since birth, and that information is passed on to the training farm.
“When a horse performs poorly, we can trace the possible reasons all the way back through its training history and even to the breeding and rearing stage, and feed that information back into our system,” he said.
“In that sense, our objective is not simply to produce more exceptional winners. It is also to continually improve our ability to produce horses that are less likely to fail - horses with the soundness, physical capacity, and mental resilience required to sustain a racing career.”
Owners who buy horses from Northern Farm often leave them in the farm’s training system to take advantage of that knowledge base to get the best out of their horses.
No single perfect program
“The main point with a 2-year-old in America is that no single program fits every horse,” said Tom Ryan of SF Bloodstock, whose recent successes include United States Champion 2YO Citizen Bull (USA), now standing at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. Three different racing surfaces, seasonal meets as opposed to year-round racing, and a wide spread of race distances necessitate a flexible training program.
"With a 2-year-old in America... no single program fits every horse." - Tom Ryan
In a similar fashion to Europe, unless a break of 45 days or more is recommended, horses typically remain in the training system once broken in and simply have a “quiet month” with access to the same facilities, instead of being transported to the paddock.
“Even a short break can greatly benefit a horse’s mental and physical growth,” said Ryan.
Similar to Australia, horses train on the surfaces and tracks they will eventually race at, and as they approach raceday, three to five furlong breezes are timed and published for public viewing. In lieu of an official trial are these officially timed breezes and proof they can safely enter and break from the gate.
Tom Ryan | Image courtesy of Keeneland
Ryan was quick to emphasise that one fast workout doesn’t make a racehorse.
“While times are recorded, they’re just part of evaluating performance,” he said.
“Daily observation of how easily they complete the workout and recover is crucial. I believe that training is as much about fitness and mental readiness as it is about working at high speeds.”
"I believe that training is as much about fitness and mental readiness as it is about working at high speeds." - Tom Ryan
As the year progresses, expectations change on the kind of 2-year-old is expected to get to the races. Earlier runners are expected to sprint, while the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the United States’ most valuable juvenile race that takes place this year at the end of October, takes place over 1700 metres, with trainers and owners already thinking about the two turn events of the Triple Crown the following season.
Different, but not wrong
There is no perfect system for guaranteeing a 2-year-old reaches the track. In fact, Massey University’s Professor Chris Rogers, NZ Equine Trust Chair in Equine Health, Welfare and Performance, believes the Australasian system has plenty of merits.
“When you compare Australia and New Zealand to other jurisdictions, we actually have a much lower fracture rate,” he said.
“The way that the Northern Hemisphere approaches fitness is to maximise fitness to minimise injury risk, whereas our trainers tend to think about getting the horse fit enough, but not exceeding the load cycle so that we cause injury. It’s a different way of looking at it.
“If you take the European models created by Kristien Verheyen that overlay fracture risk to volume of high speed work and apply them to Australian racing, it would say that the vast majority of our horses were at an extremely high fracture risk, but that simply isn’t reality. We do the high speed work that is required, but we don’t typically do more work than is unnecessary.”
"(Australasian trainers) do the high speed work that is required, but we don’t typically do more work than is unnecessary." - Professor Chris Rogers
Both Johnson and Charlton noted seeing different injuries in European 2-year-olds compared to Australia; while straight tracks lend themselves to more even loading of the limbs, working on gradients and for longer periods lent themselves to more injuries behind.
Rogers, whose work has found positive correlations between juvenile training and racing and the length and success of a racehorse’s career, believes the Australasian system of spelling is key to this lower injury rate.
“It is probably actually quite advantageous to our horses and how we race,” he said. “Many leading trainers now put the horse in the paddock for a couple of days after a big race, then bring them back in, and you find they are not actually inactive in the paddock.”
Professor Chris Rogers | Image courtesy of Massey University
A horse that has been spelled in the Australasian sense is assumed to have a lower fitness level, and therefore requires a more graded approach to returning to work. A horse that has remained at the track may be presumed to have a higher level of residual fitness, but limiting free movement has a direct impact on bone structure, which can lead to a stabled horse being more vulnerable.
“When a horse is in a box and is just handwalked or on a walker, it is missing osteoinductive exercise,” Rogers said. “So the bone will focus on repairing itself. But if you bring the horse in and put under too much pressure too quickly, it will not have completed the repair process.”
A question that still remains unanswered is why, then, do less 2-year-olds appear on raceday in a jurisdiction where the ebb and flow of our training systems lend themselves more to recovery? There has to be other factors, and perhaps key among them is how Australasia has one additional layer between trackwork and raceday: the official trial.
In Part 2, we will explore other key influences on the number of juvenile starters, the role programming has to play, and who could be hiding in our trial system.
